The European Union just dropped the hammer on Elon Musk's X with a €120 million ($140 million) fine - the first penalty ever issued under the bloc's Digital Services Act. The historic ruling targets X's controversial blue checkmark system for deceiving users by allowing anyone to pay for "verification," fundamentally breaking trust in platform authenticity. This precedent-setting case signals Brussels is done playing games with Big Tech compliance.
The European Union just made tech history by slapping X with a €120 million fine - the first company to face penalties under the landmark Digital Services Act. The ruling zeroes in on what regulators call the "deceptive design" of X's blue checkmark system, which has allowed anyone to buy verification status since Musk's takeover.
"Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU," tech chief Henna Virkkunen declared in today's announcement. The statement marks a watershed moment for European tech regulation, sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley boardrooms.
The investigation, launched back in December 2023, found X guilty of multiple DSA violations beyond just the checkmark controversy. The platform failed to meet obligations around advertising transparency and blocked researchers from accessing crucial data for studying misinformation patterns. The European Commission specifically noted that while the DSA doesn't require user verification, "it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified."
The financial sting could have been much worse. EU regulators can charge up to 6% of global revenue for DSA violations, but X's private status - acquired by Musk for $44 billion in 2022 and later transferred to his AI company XAI for $33 billion in March 2025 - makes calculating maximum penalties complex. According to reporting by The New York Times, European lawmakers deliberately calibrated the fine to "make an example" of X while avoiding potential retaliation from President Trump.
The timing couldn't be more charged politically. Musk has openly lobbied Trump to stop EU regulators from targeting US companies, joining other tech executives in pushing back against European oversight. The $140 million penalty lands amid escalating US-Europe trade disputes, with Brussels clearly signaling it won't back down from tech accountability measures.
